{"id":305,"date":"2015-04-20T12:31:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T10:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=305"},"modified":"2021-12-22T10:08:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T08:08:24","slug":"repatriation-blues-expats-struggle-with-the-dark-side-of-coming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/repatriation-blues-expats-struggle-with-the-dark-side-of-coming-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home \u00a0By\u00a0DEBRA BRUNO<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
\n

Nobody tells you about this part.<\/p>\n

Expats are good at preparing for their next exciting post, whether it\u2019s in Burundi or Boston. They\u2019ll study the language, find the best place to live, read up on the food, the climate, and the currency.<\/p>\n

But the deep, dark secret of the expat experience is that coming home \u2013 repatriation \u2013 can be even harder than leaving. \u201cWhen you go abroad, you expect everything to be new and different,\u201d says Tina Quick, author of \u201cThe Global Nomad\u2019s Guide to University Transition.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0And when you return home, you expect life to be basically the same. \u201cBut you have changed, and things back home have changed since you’ve been gone,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Robin Pascoe, author<\/a> of \u201cHomeward Bound: A Spouse\u2019s Guide to Repatriation,\u201d compares it to wearing contact lens in the wrong eyes.\u00a0 \u201cEverything looks almost right,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Many expats coming home go through a period of grief, says Ms. Quick, until they \u201cgive in to the homesickness\u201d for their host country.<\/p>\n

Maria Foley says when she and her family repatriated to Canada from Singapore, she assumed it would be a smooth transition. \u201cWe moved back to the same house; we were driving the same car,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it hit me like a punch in the gut. It took two years until I felt like a human being again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The struggle of repatriation is not just one of psychological adjustment. Multinational companies are finding that while they are using plenty of resources to prepare employees for an international transfer, they are less attentive to the other end of the move. The result, according to research by Brookfield Global Relocation Services, is that about 12 percent of employees leave the company within a few years of repatriation. While that percentage is similar to the overall attrition rate for companies, the number is a concern, \u201cgiven the inordinate cost of international assignments,\u201d says Diane Douiyssi of Brookfield.<\/p>\n

Ms. Douiyssi thinks the companies \u201cwould want to work harder to retain these key employees.\u201d The amount that companies invest in expat employees, both financially and developmentally, \u201cmake them valuable assets to the company,\u201d which is why an attrition rate that\u2019s similar to other employees is \u201csomewhat surprising,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Sheldon Kenton, chief commercial officer for Cigna Global Health Benefits, likewise notes that a \u201cfairly significant\u201d number of expat employees leave companies shortly after repatriation. \u201cThat seems like a bit of a waste,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s a financial cost. We always look at a three-year assignment of an expat as a million-dollar investment. If an employee leaves six months after returning, that\u2019s a relatively poor return on investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many companies are starting to pay more attention to this, Mr. Kenton says. Although there hasn\u2019t been much research on the post-repatriation situation of employees, he suspects that the high costs of moving employees has \u201cforced companies to take a better look at this.\u201d Part of the problem is that the human resources employees are often the last to hear about an expat employee being repatriated, he says. Cigna clients tell him that the goal is for both companies and employees to spend time figuring out the next step. \u201cDon\u2019t think about what you\u2019re going to do the week after you\u2019re repatriated.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Writer Alan Paul on Expat Memories<\/a>\u00a0and on being a \u2018Panda Dad\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Mark Jackson Recalls an Expat Adventure That Still Resonates\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> You Can\u2019t Go Home Again: For Expats \u2018Home\u2019 Can Be a Confusing Concept<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Pascoe says that her adjustment problems led her to write \u201cHomeward Bound.\u201d \u00a0Ms. Foley began a blog called \u201cI was an expat wife\u201d as a form of \u201conline therapy\u201d to help, as she writes, \u201cwork through my ambivalence about repatriating, revisit my glory days, and share whatever snippets of hard-earned wisdom I picked up in my years abroad.\u201d She\u2019s also writing a book about the experience, based on a survey of more than 1,000 people who responded to her questions about repatriation.<\/p>\n

Naomi Hattaway, an American who moved first to India and then to Singapore, wrote a post on her blog called \u201cI am a triangl<\/a>e,\u201d that went viral, receiving more than 400 comments. She ended up starting a Facebook group, also called \u201cI Am a Triangle,\u201d so that people going through similar experiences could connect. A \u201ctriangle,\u201d she says in her original post, is a person who might be from a \u201ccircle country\u201d but move to a \u201csquare society,\u201d that is totally different. Eventually that person evolves into a triangle, with elements of both cultures. Moving home doesn’t change that, she says.<\/p>\n

Lois Bushong, who grew up abroad as the child of missionaries and spent much of her own life abroad, became a therapist to help other expats deal with this transition. One of the founding members of the group, Families in Global Transition<\/a>, Ms. Bushong says that the dearth of counselling help for expats coming home \u2013 particularly those who might have had to be evacuated from countries having crises \u2013 was one of her motivations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Is somebody going to help them, talk to them?\u2019\u201d she asks. From her counselling, she also wrote a book, \u201cBelonging Everywhere and Nowhere: Insights into Counseling the Globally Mobile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other expats find that their alienation \u2013 sometimes called reverse culture shock \u2013 can take a more serious turn. Nneka Okona, a 28-year-old from Atlanta, says that after teaching English and writing in Spain for almost a year, she moved to the Washington, D.C., area to live with her father, who had moved to the city for a job. One of her friends, who had lived abroad for two years, warned her that moving back to America would be hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of shrugged it off,\u201d she says. \u201cThe first month was amazing, all the food and soda and little things I missed so much.\u201d But after a month, she says, it was like a light switch turned off. \u201cFor the first four weeks, I felt like I was visiting. Then I realized I really do live here. I was not going back anywhere. That was when things started to get really hard,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ms. Okona stopped leaving the house and cut herself off from friends. Finally, her father asked her if she wanted to see a therapist. When she did, she was diagnosed with \u201csituational depression,\u201d or a depression caused in her case by her inability to adjust to the transition of her new life. Ms. Okona is also planning her next stint abroad, this time as a graduate student in England.<\/p>\n

Ms. Bushong, the therapist, says it\u2019s easy for returning expats to feel isolated. \u201cNobody gets it. It\u2019s like having somebody dying and there\u2019s no funeral and you\u2019re not supposed to talk about it. You feel guilty talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the hardest transitions happen with expats who didn\u2019t especially want to leave. George Eves, the Moscow-based, British-born founder of Expat Info Desk<\/a>, an online resource for expats, says that many companies limit the amount of time employees can spend in a particular posting. \u201cThey may say you have to go home or go somewhere else. But you might say, I actually like living here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Ms. Hattaway recommends that before they leave, expats undergo a ritual where they visit and say goodbye to each aspect of their life abroad. Ms. Foley says that some people may also want to revisit the place later on to see how things are changed. When she returned to Singapore for a visit, she realized she had become a tourist in the place that had been her home. \u201cI had been aching for years, but being there as a tourist put that into place for me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In other instances, a trailing spouse might refuse to set down roots because she knows her spouse\u2019s career might take her away again. Ms. Bushong had one client who refused to unpack, buy furniture, or make friends for two years after the repatriation. \u201cShe kept waiting for him to come home and say, \u2018We\u2019re moving again,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Children, who may appear to be excited to return home and reunite with old friends, sometimes hide their identities as Third Culture Kids<\/a>. Ms. Foley, who had lived for years in France with her family, says that her children were fluent in French. But when one daughter took a French class back in Canada, she spoke French with a strong Anglo accent.<\/p>\n

\u201cYears later, I asked her about it,\u201d says Ms. Foley. Her daughter answered, \u201cThere was nothing wrong with my accent. I faked it,\u201d she recounts. \u201cOtherwise she would stick out as being different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Hattaway says that a teacher in her daughter\u2019s Virginia school confronted her at a parent-teacher conference because the girl, she says, didn\u2019t know anything about U.S. history or currency. Apparently the daughter told the teacher the family had moved to Virginia from Florida, which was technically true. But what she neglected to mention was that the years before that were in Singapore and India. \u201cShe decided it was too much of a hassle,\u201d Ms. Hattaway says.<\/p>\n

Many repatriated expats find it hard to connect to friends again at home. Ms. Hattaway says that expat life draws people together: \u201cYou\u2019re in a circle or tribe with other expats. But back home, you\u2019re only one in a sea of people. Some of them have never left, some don\u2019t have passports. And you look like everyone else,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tina Quick, who lives outside of Boston, says that although she\u2019s been back in the States for 10 years, she still doesn\u2019t have a best friend, someone she could call in an emergency.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t understand why she never heard from the other soccer parents she met after the season ended. Her husband reminded her that their children had all gone to elementary school together.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Ken MacHarg, who served as a pastor in six countries around the world<\/a>, says that he tells people that moving overseas will \u201cmess you up for the rest of your life. You\u2019re constantly torn between those places, and you\u2019re a changed person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expats need to know that the toughest assignment of all might be coming home. \u201cSend me home?\u201d asks Ms. Pascoe. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to go to Bangkok than to repatriate in Vancouver.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home \u00a0By\u00a0DEBRA BRUNO Nobody tells you about this part. Expats are good at preparing for their next exciting post, whether it\u2019s in Burundi or Boston. They\u2019ll study the language, find the best place to live, read up on the food, the climate, and the currency. …<\/p>\n

Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1743,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatprep.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}